Snapchat Lawsuit Alleges Social Media Platform Promotes Child Sexual Exploitation

The state of New Mexico has filed a lawsuit against the company behind the social media app Snapchat, following an investigation that revealed the platform is widely used by sexual predators seeking to use children for pornography, extortion or sex trafficking.

The complaint (PDF) was brought earlier this month in the First Judicial District Court of Santa Fe, New Mexico, indicating that Snap, Inc. not only failed to protect child users from sexual predators, but employs algorithms that actually help these criminals identify potential victims and connect with like-minded child sex abusers.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced the Snapchat lawsuit in a press release issued on September 5, indicating that Snap, Inc. has endangered the health and safety of youth in the state, alleging that the company and its executives have misled the public about the safety of the platform.

“Our undercover investigation revealed that Snapchat’s harmful design features create an environment where predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes and other forms of sexual abuse,” Torrez stated. “Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on their platform will disappear, but predators can permanently capture this content and they have created a virtual yearbook of child sexual images that are traded, sold, and stored indefinitely.”

The lawsuit seeks to hold Snap, Inc. accountable for prioritizing profits over children’s safety.

Snapchat Sexual Exploitation Problems

Snapchat is a social media application where users can connect with others to chat, as well as share pictures and video clips, which disappear once the message containing them has been seen by the recipient.

It was first released in 2011, and had more than 400 million active users in the first quarter of 2024. However, the state of New Mexico, as well as many child safety experts nationwide, warn that Snapchat holds the dubious title of being the social media site most associated with child sexploitation, such as pornographic content involving children and child sex trafficking.

Torrez indicates the lawsuit against Snapchat comes after an undercover investigation into activities on Snapchat by the New Mexico Department of Justice.

Investigators found that Snapchat was widely used in extortion schemes, where criminals convince minors to take sexually explicit pictures and videos, which they then are able to save and trade with others. In some cases, sexual predators demand the children give them money or more content to avoid being publicly exposed, the lawsuit notes.

Criminals also circulate scripts on the Snapchat platform itself, explaining how to exploit a child into providing sexual content, and Snap, Inc. has done nothing to stop it, according to Torrez.

Much of the Snapchat child exploitation content ends up on the Dark Web, sometimes in networks completely dedicated to trading sexually explicit material involving children gleaned off Snapchat.

The New Mexico DOJ says that the app has endangered the health and safety of youth in the state, citing an incident where an 11-year-old New Mexico girl was raped by a man she met on Snapchat, who has since pled guilty and been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

The state accuses the company of failing to protect users, deploying features and algorithms that actually put young users in harm’s way, and misleading the public about the safety of the app.

“Nearly every aspect of the service was designed to attract and addict young people. Moreover, Snap’s design and algorithmic recommendations openly foster and promote illicit sexual material involving children and facilitate sextortion and trafficking of children, drugs, and guns,” the lawsuit states. “It is this dichotomy that renders Snap’s conduct unfair, deceptive and unconscionable.”

Social Media Child Safety Concerns

This lawsuit comes a little less than a year after the social media site Omegle was forced to shut down, due to a similar sex trafficking lawsuit. The site’s founder announced Omegle would end operations in November 2023, as part of a settlement agreement with the family of an 11-year-old girl who was blackmailed and harassed into sending an adult man sexually explicit material.

The site’s algorithm had connected the two through video chats that were often used for transmitting sexually explicit material, but without adequate age verification software. New Mexico’s lawsuit accuses Snapchat of having the same lack of age controls.

In addition, last year a group of states filed a social media addiction lawsuit against Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, alleging that the company purposefully uses features it knows will get children and teens addicted to its services. This leads them to engage more frequently, which can have serious mental health ramifications, the states’ attorneys general claim.

The lawsuit also accuses Meta of unlawfully collecting the personal data of millions of children without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

The sexual exploitation complaints also come as the companies face a number of other social media addiction lawsuits brought by families, each raising similar claims that the platforms are intentionally designed to manipulate and maximize user time and engagement, as well as the type of content they view.

The lawsuits claim these tactics cause addictive and self-destructive behavior among teens, resulting in anxiety, depression, eating disorders and psychological damage that has led to attempted or actual suicides, especially among young girls.

Each of the social media platform giants have been accused of ignoring clear evidence about the harmful consequences of their behavior, indicating that they have refused to do anything to prevent the addiction and emotional distress, since it would directly impact the profits generated.